My kid, a 7th grader, is doing some research for his science class. He randomly picked a biome from a hat, and it was the Neritic Zone in the ocean. The assignment asked him to pick a species that lives in that zone, so he chose the Conus Geographus (Geography Cone Snail) which lives in the Great Barrier Reef (and other places, too).
So, going to the handy dandy Google Scholar database, we looked at the first 12 articles for the Conus Geographus to see which might be useful. Six of the twelve are freely available, but we have to pay for the other six from the publisher. If I was not affiliated with a place that has access to a lot of scientific journals, I might think that I would have to pay $192.95 for those other six articles. (I did not see green OA versions of those six articles, either.) This is the reason why we need more open access to research and scholarship. Science research is NOT just needed by scholars who work at subscribing universities.
If I was not affiliated with a university, I would just ignore those articles that are hidden behind paywalls. Too bad that the ACS journals and some of the Elsevier journals would not get used by the 7th grader. Actually, one of the Elsevier journals had some of their articles freely available. Thanks FEBS Letters.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
The joy of having print books around you in a library
My academic library has been going through a renovation for over a year, and it continues through March of 2013. During that time, about 98% of the collection had been moved to storage. (We have a very small reference collection in print.) Patrons can request materials, and they will be delivered within 2 hours. It really is amazing, but that is besides the point.
During the middle of the renovation, the administration of the university tried to make sure that most (about 80%) of the collection was held off site even after the renovation was done. They see the library as a cost center instead of as a source of inspiration. The faculty and students rebelled. The librarians documented multiple reasons why more of the collection needed to be held on site. Much of the reasoning was browsability. But, it was difficult to find articles that documented qualitative research. (I think we did find some.) These next two blog posts could have been useful at the time, but they were not published when we needed them. Thanks Barbara and Bohyun.
I recently visited the Brooklyn College Library for the STELLA Unconference, and I was able to simply browse the stacks. (Yeah, I know, the ebooks are not there...) I found a book concerning the development of the Hubble Space Telescope simply by browsing the print collection. (The book is also online.) It would have been difficult for me to find this book using the catalog, because the Space Telescope was not named after Edwin Hubble yet. It was simply known as the Space Telescope in the mid 1970's. I was able to skim the book looking for a specific author, but he was not there. I really miss not having a big collection of books around me. If only the administrators cherished the book collection the same way the students and faculty do.
During the middle of the renovation, the administration of the university tried to make sure that most (about 80%) of the collection was held off site even after the renovation was done. They see the library as a cost center instead of as a source of inspiration. The faculty and students rebelled. The librarians documented multiple reasons why more of the collection needed to be held on site. Much of the reasoning was browsability. But, it was difficult to find articles that documented qualitative research. (I think we did find some.) These next two blog posts could have been useful at the time, but they were not published when we needed them. Thanks Barbara and Bohyun.
I recently visited the Brooklyn College Library for the STELLA Unconference, and I was able to simply browse the stacks. (Yeah, I know, the ebooks are not there...) I found a book concerning the development of the Hubble Space Telescope simply by browsing the print collection. (The book is also online.) It would have been difficult for me to find this book using the catalog, because the Space Telescope was not named after Edwin Hubble yet. It was simply known as the Space Telescope in the mid 1970's. I was able to skim the book looking for a specific author, but he was not there. I really miss not having a big collection of books around me. If only the administrators cherished the book collection the same way the students and faculty do.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Clubs and cliques in STM publishing and the impact on Open Access (#openaccess)
I know that one the major reasons Open Access has had a hard time getting a foothold into the publishing world is because of the clubishness of science and scientists. People often do not know about the social aspects of scientists and their work. This is one of the reasons that associations, societies [like clubs] and conferences play such an important part of a scientist's career.
Everybody wants to feel that they belong by being a member of a variety of social groups [clubs]. Scientists are no different, and there are differences from one club to the next. Some are more exclusive than others. There are clubs of scientists who were educated at Ivy League schools [a pretty small club], and clubs of those who haven't been. There are other kinds of clubs, such as the set of people who:
So, what does this all have to do with Open Access?
Scientists like the clubs that are prestigious and are exclusive. Some scientists like the fact that only relevant subscribers can read their articles in toll-access journals. If you work for a rich institution that can afford a subscription to a journal like Tetrahedron Letters ($16,773 list price for an annual subscription, or if you or your institution can afford to buy articles as needed), then you must be at a place deemed good enough to read it. These scientists may not even post green OA versions of their articles, even though the publisher allows it.
Administrators may use value judgments to say that if you published in a 4 star journal, then your work must be good because it is difficult to get articles accepted by that journal. Hence, you may look good simply because you are a member of that particular club. If you have great articles that are not published in four star journals, you may have a much harder time getting your work noticed by the administrators. However, it has been shown that simply having an article in a prestigious journal (with a high impact factor) does not mean that any specific accepted article is any good.
Some Open Access publishing sources are trying to break down this exclusivity mindset and thought process. Journals like PLOS ONE have a different standard of acceptance. Even with the different standard, the journal still rejects about 30% of incoming papers. Some scientists see this as a lower standard, and hence they may think that all of the articles in PLOS ONE must be of low quality. Of course, that is not true. (Note: if you care, PLOS ONE has an impact factor of about 4.0 which is pretty good overall.)
Scientists are trying to figure out different ways to measure quality research, but the impact factor will probably used as a proxy for article quality for many years to come, partially because people may not know about alternative metrics.
PLOS ONE is just one example. Most Open Access journals are trying to break the mold and change the mindset of some scientists and publishers who still want to limit access to scientific research to the exclusive members of certain clubs and groups. Will you help me change the system?
Everybody wants to feel that they belong by being a member of a variety of social groups [clubs]. Scientists are no different, and there are differences from one club to the next. Some are more exclusive than others. There are clubs of scientists who were educated at Ivy League schools [a pretty small club], and clubs of those who haven't been. There are other kinds of clubs, such as the set of people who:
- Work at an ivy league school
- Are a tenured professor at an ivy league school
- Got 1600 (or 2400) on the SAT
- Published multiple times in Science/Nature/Cell/PRL/JACS
- Were award winners in a society like the ACS or the American Physical Society
- Received a grant of $1M plus from the NIH
- Are members of the National Academy of Sciences
- Carry a public library card
- Are short, slightly pudgy middle-aged balding men with two dogs
- Make beer at home
So, what does this all have to do with Open Access?
Scientists like the clubs that are prestigious and are exclusive. Some scientists like the fact that only relevant subscribers can read their articles in toll-access journals. If you work for a rich institution that can afford a subscription to a journal like Tetrahedron Letters ($16,773 list price for an annual subscription, or if you or your institution can afford to buy articles as needed), then you must be at a place deemed good enough to read it. These scientists may not even post green OA versions of their articles, even though the publisher allows it.
Administrators may use value judgments to say that if you published in a 4 star journal, then your work must be good because it is difficult to get articles accepted by that journal. Hence, you may look good simply because you are a member of that particular club. If you have great articles that are not published in four star journals, you may have a much harder time getting your work noticed by the administrators. However, it has been shown that simply having an article in a prestigious journal (with a high impact factor) does not mean that any specific accepted article is any good.
Some Open Access publishing sources are trying to break down this exclusivity mindset and thought process. Journals like PLOS ONE have a different standard of acceptance. Even with the different standard, the journal still rejects about 30% of incoming papers. Some scientists see this as a lower standard, and hence they may think that all of the articles in PLOS ONE must be of low quality. Of course, that is not true. (Note: if you care, PLOS ONE has an impact factor of about 4.0 which is pretty good overall.)
Scientists are trying to figure out different ways to measure quality research, but the impact factor will probably used as a proxy for article quality for many years to come, partially because people may not know about alternative metrics.
PLOS ONE is just one example. Most Open Access journals are trying to break the mold and change the mindset of some scientists and publishers who still want to limit access to scientific research to the exclusive members of certain clubs and groups. Will you help me change the system?
Labels:
altmetrics,
culture,
open access,
science,
scientists
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Open Access books X 2: Crawford & Suber #openaccess
I finished these two Open Access books (One by Peter Suber, and the other by Walt Crawford) a while ago, but I haven't been able to blog about them until now. I was thinking of comparing and contrasting the two books, but I think it will be easier to just pull out my favorite parts from each book separately.
Here are the overviews.
Walt begins with a section on Who Cares? He clearly explains why librarians of all stripes and flavors should care about understanding the basic underpinnings of OA.
Here are some quotes and insights that struck me.
Les Carr, repository manager at the University of Southampton, noted that "Repositories are hard work because changing researchers' working practices is hard work and I guess there's no single magic solution that's going to make that efford disappear." (Page 32-33.) In other words, it takes more work than just setting up a computer with some software on the Internet somewhere. It takes work to get scholars to change their workflows and practices.
In the section on Why Change? Walt said that in order to get scholars to change their practices, "They need to prefer OA journals for new papers when that makes sense. They need to deposit existing papers and assure that they have (and use) the rights to deposit new papers when OA journals don't make sense. Librarians need to have scholars change, but scholars need reasons to change. That's an ongoing issue for librarians and libraries, one where you can't do it yourself but need to take part in moving things forward." (Page 37) Yes, we need some good carrots to lead scholars to change their behavior.
Chapter 4 addressed controversies. Walt noted in the section concerning "Researchers already have all the access they need" that Alan Adler claimed "there is no crisis in the world of scholarly publishing, or in the dissemination of scientific materials." (Page 49.) Of course this is wrong. Even the largest institutions in first world countries (Harvard, for example) do not provide access to all of the materials that are needed by their students and faculty. Walt also did a good job addressing responses such as "The public can always get access to articles from the public libraries" and that "Scholarly articles are intended for other scholars and world just confuse laymen." (Page 50.) Many other misunderstandings are addressed.
On pages 60-61, Walt lists some open questions that could be answered with research into scholarly communication practices. Some of them are:
Peter noted that scholars "don't do it [publish articles] to earn profits from the results. They are all nonprofit. They certainly don't do it to make scholarly writings into gifts to enrich publishers, especially when conventional publishers erect access barriers at the expense of research." (Page 14.) Yes, scholars should not be working to provides profits to the commercial publishers.
On page 18, it was noted that Tim O'Reilly said that "OA doesn't threaten publishing; it only threatens existing publishers who do not adapt."
"OA isn't an attempt to punish or undermine conventional publishers. OA is an attempt to advance the interests of research, researchers, and research institutions." (Page 24.) My comment to this would be that if conventional commercial publishers are undermined, I would not be heartbroken.
On page 25, Peter noted that the "publishing lobby sometimes argues that the primary beneficiaries of OA are lay readers, perhaps to avoid acknowledging how many professional researchers lack access, or perhaps to set up the patronizing counter-argument that lay people don’t care to read research literature and wouldn’t understand it if they tried."
A study from the UK-based Research Information Network reported that "60 percent [of researchers] said that access limitations hindered their research, and 18 percent said the hindrance was significant." (Page 30.)
"Conventional publishers regard easy online sharing as a problem while researchers and libraries regard it as a solution. The internet is widening the gap between the interests of conventional publishers and the interests of researchers and research institutions." (Page 35.)
"OA is a kind of access, not a kind of editorial policy. It's not intrinsically tied to any particular business model or method of digital preservation." (Page 103.) Many scholars know about some of the larger OA journals that have author-side page charges, but they don't know that roughly 70% of all OA journals do not have author-side fees.
"As the late Jim Gray used to say, 'May all your problems be technical.'" (Page 112.) Yes, the technical problems of publishing open access journals and articles have been solved, but we still have the social problems of getting more and more scholars to understand and support the OA ecosystem.
Also on page 112, Peter noted that OA could include "the whole shebang" of knowledge claims, proposals, hypotheses, conjectures, arguments, analysis, evidence, data, algorithms, methods evaluations, interpretations, discussion, criticism, dissent, summaries and reviews, and more.
On page 115-116, he covered who needs OA? "It's easy to agree that not everyone needs it. But in the case of OA, there's no easy way to identify those who do and those who don't. In addition, there's no easy way, and no reason, to deliver it only to those who need it, and deny it to everyone else." He continued with "OA allows us to provide access to everyone who cares to have access, without patronizing guesswork about who really wants it, who really deserves it, and who would really benefit from it." The rest of pages 116-117 continues to counter the argument about lay readers not needing access to research.
A Harris poll showed that "an overwhelming majority of Americans wanted OA for publicly funded research. 83 percent wanted it for their doctors and 82 percent wanted it for everyone." (Page 118.)
And finally--"Even if we acknowledge the need for cultural change in the transition to OA--far more critical than technological change--it's easy to underestimate the cultural barriers and the time required to work through them. OA may be compatible with copyright, peer review, profit, print, prestige, and preservation. But that doesn't quiet resistance when those facts about it are precisely the ones hidden by confident false assumptions." (Page 167.)
Here are the overviews.
Walt Crawford. Open Access: What You Need to Know Now, Chicago: American Library Association. 2011. (Some of the book is also on Google Books.)This is a pretty quick read. I usually take forever to read books, and I read this is just two days. I am sure a fast reader could whip through this in an afternoon.
Walt begins with a section on Who Cares? He clearly explains why librarians of all stripes and flavors should care about understanding the basic underpinnings of OA.
Here are some quotes and insights that struck me.
Les Carr, repository manager at the University of Southampton, noted that "Repositories are hard work because changing researchers' working practices is hard work and I guess there's no single magic solution that's going to make that efford disappear." (Page 32-33.) In other words, it takes more work than just setting up a computer with some software on the Internet somewhere. It takes work to get scholars to change their workflows and practices.
In the section on Why Change? Walt said that in order to get scholars to change their practices, "They need to prefer OA journals for new papers when that makes sense. They need to deposit existing papers and assure that they have (and use) the rights to deposit new papers when OA journals don't make sense. Librarians need to have scholars change, but scholars need reasons to change. That's an ongoing issue for librarians and libraries, one where you can't do it yourself but need to take part in moving things forward." (Page 37) Yes, we need some good carrots to lead scholars to change their behavior.
Chapter 4 addressed controversies. Walt noted in the section concerning "Researchers already have all the access they need" that Alan Adler claimed "there is no crisis in the world of scholarly publishing, or in the dissemination of scientific materials." (Page 49.) Of course this is wrong. Even the largest institutions in first world countries (Harvard, for example) do not provide access to all of the materials that are needed by their students and faculty. Walt also did a good job addressing responses such as "The public can always get access to articles from the public libraries" and that "Scholarly articles are intended for other scholars and world just confuse laymen." (Page 50.) Many other misunderstandings are addressed.
On pages 60-61, Walt lists some open questions that could be answered with research into scholarly communication practices. Some of them are:
- How much publishing is there in a particular discipline? What are the ways to estimate the number of articles or pages publishing in that discipline?
- What percentage of that corpus is available as OA, either green or gold?
- What percentage of papers are CC-By, CC-By-NC or other?
- What are the business models of various journals or publishers who do not have author-side fees?
- How are researchers responding to funder and university policies? Do these policies change where they submit their work?
If you want see or hear more from the author, here are some good audio and video clips of Peter talking about the book. Here are some good sections of the book.
Peter Suber. Open Access. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 2012. (The book will be Open Access as of June 2013, and a bunch of the book is available at Google Books.)
Peter noted that scholars "don't do it [publish articles] to earn profits from the results. They are all nonprofit. They certainly don't do it to make scholarly writings into gifts to enrich publishers, especially when conventional publishers erect access barriers at the expense of research." (Page 14.) Yes, scholars should not be working to provides profits to the commercial publishers.
On page 18, it was noted that Tim O'Reilly said that "OA doesn't threaten publishing; it only threatens existing publishers who do not adapt."
"OA isn't an attempt to punish or undermine conventional publishers. OA is an attempt to advance the interests of research, researchers, and research institutions." (Page 24.) My comment to this would be that if conventional commercial publishers are undermined, I would not be heartbroken.
On page 25, Peter noted that the "publishing lobby sometimes argues that the primary beneficiaries of OA are lay readers, perhaps to avoid acknowledging how many professional researchers lack access, or perhaps to set up the patronizing counter-argument that lay people don’t care to read research literature and wouldn’t understand it if they tried."
A study from the UK-based Research Information Network reported that "60 percent [of researchers] said that access limitations hindered their research, and 18 percent said the hindrance was significant." (Page 30.)
"Conventional publishers regard easy online sharing as a problem while researchers and libraries regard it as a solution. The internet is widening the gap between the interests of conventional publishers and the interests of researchers and research institutions." (Page 35.)
"OA is a kind of access, not a kind of editorial policy. It's not intrinsically tied to any particular business model or method of digital preservation." (Page 103.) Many scholars know about some of the larger OA journals that have author-side page charges, but they don't know that roughly 70% of all OA journals do not have author-side fees.
"As the late Jim Gray used to say, 'May all your problems be technical.'" (Page 112.) Yes, the technical problems of publishing open access journals and articles have been solved, but we still have the social problems of getting more and more scholars to understand and support the OA ecosystem.
Also on page 112, Peter noted that OA could include "the whole shebang" of knowledge claims, proposals, hypotheses, conjectures, arguments, analysis, evidence, data, algorithms, methods evaluations, interpretations, discussion, criticism, dissent, summaries and reviews, and more.
On page 115-116, he covered who needs OA? "It's easy to agree that not everyone needs it. But in the case of OA, there's no easy way to identify those who do and those who don't. In addition, there's no easy way, and no reason, to deliver it only to those who need it, and deny it to everyone else." He continued with "OA allows us to provide access to everyone who cares to have access, without patronizing guesswork about who really wants it, who really deserves it, and who would really benefit from it." The rest of pages 116-117 continues to counter the argument about lay readers not needing access to research.
A Harris poll showed that "an overwhelming majority of Americans wanted OA for publicly funded research. 83 percent wanted it for their doctors and 82 percent wanted it for everyone." (Page 118.)
And finally--"Even if we acknowledge the need for cultural change in the transition to OA--far more critical than technological change--it's easy to underestimate the cultural barriers and the time required to work through them. OA may be compatible with copyright, peer review, profit, print, prestige, and preservation. But that doesn't quiet resistance when those facts about it are precisely the ones hidden by confident false assumptions." (Page 167.)
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
On the need for social change in the #openaccess and scholarly communication system
I have written a little bit in the past about how the culture of information sharing and dissemination is different from one discipline or field of research to the next.
Barbara Fister recently wrote in Inside Higher Ed about how we need more than just technological change to create greater access [Open Access] to scholarship, we need to create a culture where scholars are encouraged to share their research using Open Access methods. This is true for those in the sciences, the social sciences and in the humanities. She noted:
The policies of tenure and promotion committees vary from institution to institution, and from department to department. If we are going to truly promote greater access to research and the literature (and data and everything else), we (OA advocates) need to provide greater incentives for the researchers with different tenure and promotion policies. This starts with the premise that Open Access is the default mode of scholarship (PDF), and that if they want to hide their research in a closed toll-access journal (or a journal that does not allow for green OA versions, or in a low-circulation book), then they will need to jump through hoops to submit articles/chapters to such journals and books.
This opinion piece in Aljazeera also noted the culture of some academics to hide their research from the rest of the world, because some researchers want to only share their research with a small set of other researchers through toll-access journals or books--to only those with the correct keys to that set of knowledge. Sarah Kendzior wrote:
Barbara Fister recently wrote in Inside Higher Ed about how we need more than just technological change to create greater access [Open Access] to scholarship, we need to create a culture where scholars are encouraged to share their research using Open Access methods. This is true for those in the sciences, the social sciences and in the humanities. She noted:
Much harder is changing the cultural practices that surround publishing, the ones that assign value to certain prestigious journals and university presses, and then assign value to scholars by proxy, relying on publishers to curate our faculties (a task university presses didn’t sign on for, I should add).Of course, researchers and faculty are concerned with the perceived prestige of the sources they publish in. Harvard is trying to convince the faculty that they should move the prestige to Open Access. But, that tactic may not work at all institutions and fields. Some fields like chemistry have strong ties to industry, and there is some reluctance for many chemists to share their knowledge widely (for financial reasons, patent reasons, etc.). [See page 20 of this PDF report.] Some in the humanities may have concerns with others sharing (tweeting, blogging, etc.) their work that the author thinks is inappropriate. However, most scientists would be happy to know that their work is being discussed in non-traditional scholarly channels.
The policies of tenure and promotion committees vary from institution to institution, and from department to department. If we are going to truly promote greater access to research and the literature (and data and everything else), we (OA advocates) need to provide greater incentives for the researchers with different tenure and promotion policies. This starts with the premise that Open Access is the default mode of scholarship (PDF), and that if they want to hide their research in a closed toll-access journal (or a journal that does not allow for green OA versions, or in a low-circulation book), then they will need to jump through hoops to submit articles/chapters to such journals and books.
This opinion piece in Aljazeera also noted the culture of some academics to hide their research from the rest of the world, because some researchers want to only share their research with a small set of other researchers through toll-access journals or books--to only those with the correct keys to that set of knowledge. Sarah Kendzior wrote:
Academic publishing is structured on exclusivity. Originally, this exclusivity had to do with competition within journals. Acceptance rates at top journals are low, in some disciplines under 5 per cent, and publishing in prestigious venues was once an indication of one’s value as a scholar.
Today, it all but ensures that your writing will go unread. "The more difficult it is to get an article into a journal, the higher the perceived value of having done so," notes Katheen Fitzpatrick, the Director of Scholarly Communication at the Modern Language Association. "But this sense of prestige too easily shades over into a sense that the more exclusively a publication is distributed, the higher its value."When we convince tenure and promotion committees of the value of sharing research through Open Access channels, and that OA has more benefit to the institution (and the department and the individual) than hiding the research in supposedly prestigious toll-access sources, then the value of OA will go up as more and more t&p committees and funders demand it.
Labels:
chemistry,
culture,
humanities,
open access,
scholarly communication,
science
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Scholars--Don't give away your work for free: Synthesizing many scholarly communication issues tonight
It seems like scholars and researchers are finally starting to get the point that they shouldn't be giving away their work for free to commercial publishers who then sell back that content to libraries, at often-times huge profits. Libraries do not exist to make sure that commercial publishers can rake in huge amounts of cash for their stakeholders.
This even holds true for non-profit societies such as the American Chemical Society who act as if they are a commercial outfit. See this Chronicle article (temporary full text access) and Jenica's posts about them on her blog and in CHMNINF. Other bullies have also been recently outed. [Edited to add: The ACS is scared of the new information environment (including social networking sites such as blogs and Twitter (and discussion lists?) where they can't control all of the terms and the language of librarians. They respond with fear, uncertainty and doubt to attack librarians who dare question their position.]
In other Open Access news, the SCOAP3 deal seems to be moving along.
I just finished reading Peter Suber's book on Open Access. Thankfully, John wrote a great overview of the book similar to what I was going to say. In the next day or seven, I will try to compare and contrast Suber's OA book with Walt Crawford's OA book. As John notes, they are complementary, and do not compete for the same audience. Both are very worthwhile reads.
[Another edit: I forgot to mention all of the stuff going on around the American Historical Association. Fun reading. Especially the post from Barbara.]
Good night.
This even holds true for non-profit societies such as the American Chemical Society who act as if they are a commercial outfit. See this Chronicle article (temporary full text access) and Jenica's posts about them on her blog and in CHMNINF. Other bullies have also been recently outed. [Edited to add: The ACS is scared of the new information environment (including social networking sites such as blogs and Twitter (and discussion lists?) where they can't control all of the terms and the language of librarians. They respond with fear, uncertainty and doubt to attack librarians who dare question their position.]
In other Open Access news, the SCOAP3 deal seems to be moving along.
I just finished reading Peter Suber's book on Open Access. Thankfully, John wrote a great overview of the book similar to what I was going to say. In the next day or seven, I will try to compare and contrast Suber's OA book with Walt Crawford's OA book. As John notes, they are complementary, and do not compete for the same audience. Both are very worthwhile reads.
[Another edit: I forgot to mention all of the stuff going on around the American Historical Association. Fun reading. Especially the post from Barbara.]
Good night.
Labels:
acs,
chemistry,
culture,
open access,
scholarly communication
Friday, August 24, 2012
Some statements from scientists and researchers noting that Open Access isn't needed by the general public
Statements such as the following really chap my hide and get my goat. Some scientists and researches seem to think that the general public is too stupid to be able to use scientific articles and information. GAAAHHHH!
- Lord Robert Winston noted that “Open Access isn’t going to solve the world’s problems at all. I don’t believe it really contributes greatly to public engagement.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yELZ3kbFj1w about 48 minutes in) and “Clarity, relevance and perhaps interaction are more important than open access. Society has paid for our science, so we have a duty to communicate, but electronic media may not be the best ways to engage the public.” (http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=419254)
- From this Scholarly Kitchen post -- “Despite accessibility, the information remains inaccessible in any functional sense — they [the general public] can’t apply it, understand it competently, or put it into context. The information is accessible, but the person has no access to its real value.”
- Chemistry World article -- “The vast majority of people who need regular access to journals - primarily researchers - belong to institutions or companies with subscriptions to the journals they want to read. How much would the general public actually gain from access to complex, technically written and jargon-heavy articles?”
- Sandy Thatcher noted in an email to me and others on a discussion list [scholcomm@ala.org on January 8, 2012] that -- Laypeople/General public would not be able to benefit “from the more abstract theoretical discussions that occur in journal articles that they are very likely not going to understand anyway.”
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Declining importance of journal Impact Factors, and move the impact to Open Access
I left this comment on an internal Elsevier forum called Innovation Explorers.
"It was interesting to see the several comments about impact and Thomson's Impact Factors (IF). I should note that the impact factor of the journal title containing articles is becoming less and less important. Administrators should try to determine the impact of individual articles, not the impact of the journal title container. (A great article for someone can appear in a small publication with low IF, while mediocre tangential articles can appear in high IF journals.) It has been shown that over the last 20 years, it is becoming less important for authors to get published in high IF journals to get their research noticed. See http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/pamphlet/2012/06/14/more-reason-to-outlaw-impact-factors-from-personnel-discussions/ and "The weakening relationship between the Impact Factor and papers' citations in the digital age." Many are in favor of moving the prestige (and impact) to OA publications because anyone can read the articles, not just subscribers. See http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/05/10/moving-the-prestige-to-open-access-publishing/."
My Prelim 2012 SLA Chicago Conference Schedule
----- Saturday, July 14, 2012 ----- | |
Frontier Airlines 531 - 11:50am flight | |
10:00 AM-12:00 PM | |
Depart Denver, Colorado Frontier Airlines 531 Economy | Airbus A319 11:50 AM Denver International Airport (DEN) Arrive Chicago, Illinois 3:06 PM Midway Airport (MDW) | |
Fly out to Chicago for SLA | |
12:00 PM-2:45 PM | |
PAM Early-Bird Dinner | |
6:00 PM-9:00 PM (755 South Clark Street, Blackie's of Chicago) | |
Please meet at the restaurant for this member-paid event. | |
----- Sunday, July 15, 2012 ----- | |
Sci-Tech Newcomers Lunch | |
11:30 AM-1:00 PM (get location) | |
Lunch for
those who are new to the division or first-time conference attendees. Meet each other and the Sci-Tech Division leadership. | |
DST Board Meeting | |
1:00 PM-3:00 PM (Hilton Chicago, Joliet Room, Chicago, IL) | |
Annual
board meeting of the Science & Technology Division. Open to all division members and any others interested. MODERATING:Cheryl Hansen, Engineering Systems Inc. | |
Taste of Chicago Welcome Reception | |
3:00 PM-5:00 PM (Convention Center, INFO-EXPO, Chicago, IL) | |
All
conference attendees are invited to celebrate the start of the SLA 2012
Annual Conference & INFO-EXPO. Come join us in the INFO-EXPO to network with fellow attendees,enter to win one of many terrific prizes, and enjoy food and drink before the General Session. | |
Sunday General Session and Awards Presentation | |
5:15 PM-7:15 PM (Convention Center, Arie Crown Theater, Chicago, IL) | |
Join us as
we honor our 2012 Award Recipients and outstanding conference partners before featured speaker, Guy Kawasaki, takes the stage of the impressive Arie Crown Theater. Guy Kawasaki is the co-founder of Alltop.com, an “online magazine rack” of popular topics on the Web, and a founding partner at Garage Technology Ventures. He is also a columnist for the Open Forum of America... | |
----- Monday, July 16, 2012 ----- | |
Sci-Tech Business Meeting and Breakfast | |
7:30 AM-9:30 AM (Convention Center, Room S402A, Chicago, IL) | |
PRICE:
$20.00 Member/ $5.00 Student Member/ $25.00 Non-Member Annual business and breakfast meeting of the Sci-Tech Division. Come have some breakfast, network with your colleagues old and new, and find out what the division is doing. MODERATING:Cheryl Hansen, Engineering Systems Inc. | |
Collections in Transition: E-Books and Collection Development | |
10:00 AM-11:30 AM (Convention Center, Room E351, Chicago, IL) | |
As
collections move from the print to the electronic world, libraries must change their collection development practices and policies to reflect new opportunities and challenges. In this session you will learn how libraries are transforming their collection development practices and policies to address the proliferation of electronic books, including acquisitions based on patron demand. In a... | |
PAM-wide Roundtable | |
10:00 AM-11:30 AM (Convention Center, Room S403A, Chicago, IL) | |
Discussion
of issues related to Physics-Astronomy-Mathematics information and libraries. MODERATING:Zahra Kamarei, University of Rochester | |
PAM Business Meeting and Lunch | |
12:00 PM-1:30 PM (Convention Center, Room S401A, Chicago, IL) | |
Sponsored by the American Physical Society (APS). | |
Use of Social Media by Non-Profits | |
12:00 PM-1:30 PM (Convention Center, Room E451A, Chicago, IL) | |
Social
media offers a powerful yet low-cost way for nonprofits to demonstrate, through pictures, words, and video, how they are making a difference and why they need support. Whether you're considering social media for your organization or you've been using it successfully for years, this session is for you. Participants will learn best practices for creating an engaging social media p... | |
INFO-EXPO Magnificent Mile Networking Refreshments | |
2:00 PM-4:00 PM (Convention Center, INFO-EXPO, Chicago, IL) | |
TBD | |
Computer Science Roundtable | |
4:00 PM-5:30 PM (Convention Center, Room S403B, Chicago, IL) | |
Join us in this roundtable discussion on issues in computer science librarianship. | |
SPOTLIGHT SESSION: Reinventing Library Skills | |
4:00 PM-5:30 PM (Convention Center, Room E450B, Chicago, IL) | |
Case
studies and practical advice for transporting library skill sets to new areas of the information profession or to entirely new careers, with a focus on reinventing skills to stay competitive in a tight economy; branching out, and developing in areas that are still relevant to SLA. MODERATING: Mary Talley, Talley Partners SPEAKING:Richard Hulser, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles... | |
PAM Book Group Discussion | |
5:30 PM-7:00 PM (Convention Center, Room S404A, Chicago, IL) | |
This event
will be held in the PAM Division's Hospitality Suite at McCormick
Place. Please contact Elizabeth Brown at 607.237.2917 with any questions. MODERATING:Elizabeth Brown, Binghamton University | |
American West Reception - 6-8pm | |
6:00 PM-6:00 PM (TBA, Chicago, IL) | |
A hosted
reception for members of SLA’s "western" chapters, their
colleagues and friends. Please meet at the Newberry Library and contact Philip Gust (cell: 650.367.-7652; e-mail: pgust@stanford.edu) with any questions you may have. | |
SLA Chicago APS Dinner | |
6:00 PM-8:00 PM (Gioco’s Restaurant, 1312 South Wabash Ave.) | |
By invitation only Gioco’s Restaurant Monday, July 16th, 2012 at 6:45 pm 1312 South Wabash Avenue Chicago, IL 60605 (312) 939-3870 | |
PAM Open House | |
7:00 PM-10:00 PM (Hilton Chicago, Williford Room A, Chicago, IL) | |
Sponsored by the AIP Publishing. | |
Knovel - Join us for the best cocktail party of SLA 2012! | |
8:00 PM-10:00 PM (The Gage, 24 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60603) | |
Chocolate Reception | |
8:00 PM-9:30 PM (Newberry Library, 60 West Walton Street Chicago, IL 60610) | |
Continue a wonderful day of sessions and activities by connecting with colleagues while enjoying offerings of delectable chocolate. MODERATING:Richard Hulser; Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County | |
----- Tuesday, July 17, 2012 ----- | |
PAM Vendor Update and Networking Breakfast | |
8:00 AM-9:30 AM (Convention Center, Room S401A, Chicago, IL) | |
Publishers and vendors, especially in physics, astronomy, and mathematics, will present on agility in changing times. MODERATING:Julie Arendt, Southern Illinois University; Kim Hukill, American Institute of Physics Niels Bohr Library and Archives SPEAKING:John Haynes, AIP; David Marshall, SIAM; Eric Pepper, SPIE; Olaf Ernst, IOP Publishing | |
Go to PAM suite. | |
10:00 AM-12:00 PM (PAM Division Suite (S404A, Convention Center)) | |
INFO-EXPO Lincoln Park Networking Lunch | |
12:00 PM-2:00 PM (Convention Center, INFO-EXPO, Chicago, IL) | |
Academic Division Roundtable | |
2:00 PM-3:30 PM (Convention Center, Room E271B, Chicago, IL) | |
A networking session designed for small-group discussions on the most important and relevant issues facing academic librarians today. Bring your problems, solutions and ideas and be prepared for lively discussion! | |
How and Why Things Fail - Forensic Engineers and Information Specialists | |
2:00 PM-3:30 PM (Convention Center, Room E253C, Chicago, IL) | |
Real Forensic Engineering not made for TV. Librarians, information researchers, and libraries of all types and forms are essential to the field of forensic engineering. Come hear Michael Stevenson of ESI talk about what forensic engineering really is and how the gathering of information is key to the field. MODERATING:Cheryl Hansen, Engineering Systems Inc. SPEAKING:Michael Stevenson, ESI | |
PAM Physics Roundtable | |
2:00 PM-3:30 PM (Convention Center, Room S402B, Chicago, IL) | |
Small discussion topics include: physics library instruction, non-traditional services, institutional repositories, historical exhibits, faculty interaction and outreach, and space planning and redesign. MODERATING:Michael Chesnes, LAC Group / NASA Goddard; Kathleen A. Lehman, University of Arkansas | |
Open Access to Federal Science Technology Information | |
4:00 PM-5:30 PM (Convention Center, Room E253C, Chicago, IL) | |
The session will address Open access through the Federal Science Repository Service (FSRS) and the collaboration between NTIS and the scientific and engineering communities. Learn the what, why and how of this collaboration and find out how it is working and what it can do for you. SPEAKING:Wayne Strickland, National Technical Information Serv | |
SLA Contributed Papers - Tuesday Session | |
4:00 PM-5:30 PM (Convention Center, Room E253A, Chicago, IL) | |
Adding Value - Honing Our Craft:• “Copyright in Special Libraries: Overview and Suggestion of Best Practices” (Susan Craft)• “How the Agility of Librarians Led to the Development of TRAIL” (Daureen Nesdill)• “Models of Agility: Lessons from Embedded Librarians” (David Shumaker)• “People-focused Marketing: Showing Value, Gaining Loyalty,... | |
All-Sciences Poster Session and Reception | |
6:00 PM-8:00 PM (Hilton Chicago, Williford Room BC, Chicago, IL) | |
This event highlights multiple themes representing innovation, creativity, and change, with support from multiple divisions. Join your colleagues for food, drink, and networking, and learn new ideas to take back to your library. | |
Joint Poster Session | |
7:00 PM-9:00 PM (Hilton Chicago, Waldorf Room, Chicago, IL) | |
The theme for this year’s poster session is “Jumping over the Candlestick: Individual and Institutional Efforts to Be Nimble and Quick in an Interconnected World.” Posters will present case studies, research and innovative ideas about how information professionals and/or their institutions are staying agile in today’s open world economy. This session is a relaxe... | |
----- Wednesday, July 18, 2012 ----- | |
Science and Engineering 101 | |
8:00 AM-9:30 AM (Convention Center, Room E264, Chicago, IL) | |
This year in 101 our experts will introduce the best tools to help you discover, obtain, and work with resources in nuclear engineering and physics. SPEAKING:Mary Frances Lembo, PNNL Tech Library Pacific Northwest Technical Laboratory; James Manasco, University of Louisville PRESENTATION HANDOUTS: http://www.sla.org/pdfs/sla2012/SciEngineering101MaryFLembo.pdf | |
UX
for Non-UXers 8:00am - 9:30am @ Convention Center, Room E253C Gretchen McNeely, Tilla Edmunds (Thomson Reuters) , Debra Kolah (Convener of the SLA UX Caucus) and Mike Corbett, will share stories about their UX experiences, and introduce you gently to: relevant terms in UX, information architecture (IA) and service design; elements of design thinking that play into UX discussions; areas where content strategy, IA and UX intersect; the challenges addressed by effective experience design;... Open Data in Chicago | |
10:00 AM-11:30 AM (Convention Center, Room E253C, Chicago, IL) | |
Chicago has recently launched major government transparency efforts. Learn more about open data initiatives in the Windy City, particularly the work of the Metro Chicago Information Center.SPEAKING:Virginia Carlson, Urban Rubrics | |
PAM Mathematics Roundtable | |
10:00 AM-11:30 AM (Convention Center, Room E267, Chicago, IL) | |
A discussion of issues related to mathematics information and libraries. MODERATING: Jane Holmquist, Princeton University; Andrew Shimp , Yale University | |
Gov on the Go: Mobile Apps | |
12:00 PM-1:30 PM (Convention Center, Room E253C, Chicago, IL) | |
Government information is now being made available on the go via smart phone applications. This session will explore creating mobile applications using government information as well as one government library's experience evaluating mobile applications for use in an agency setting.SPEAKING:Heidi Peters, DARPA Support Contractor; Katrina Stierholz, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis | |
SLA Webmasters Meetup (Operation Vitality) | |
12:00 PM-1:30 PM (Convention Center, Room E252, Chicago, IL) | |
Calling all SLA Unit Webmasters and members of the Webmaster Section (IT Division)! Join Daniel Lee and Quan Logan for this interactive meetup to discuss "Operation Vitality" SLA's effort to adopt Wordpress as the CMS of choice for unit websites. We'll share tips and strategies for optimizing Wordpress, discuss what the future holds and have a general Q & A session. Bring your lunch and your lapto... | |
SLA Annual Business and Membership Meeting | |
2:00 PM-3:00 PM (Convention Center, Room E450, Chicago, IL) | |
Come hear SLA CEO Janice R. Lachance deliver the annual state-of-the association presentation. In addition, SLA President Brent Mai and Treasurer Dan Trefethen will report on the successes and planned initiatives of the association. | |
Future Now: A Panel Discussion | |
3:00 PM-4:00 PM (Convention Center, Room E450, Chicago, IL) | |
SLA 2012 is turning the conference closing session on its head!Join us for a new and exciting panel presentation by leading information pros who will discuss and debate topics that were popular during the conference and will continue to be important throughout 2012. This highly engaging event will build on the momentum created by conference sessions and attendee interactions and will include conte... | |
Get ready to go to O'Hare to get to bus for 6 or 7pm. | |
3:30 PM-6:00 PM | |
Closing Reception | |
4:30 PM-6:30 PM (TBA, Chicago, IL) | |
PRICE: $20.00 Member/ $5.00 Student Member/ $20.00 Non-Member The Kentucky Chapter invites all conference attendees to join us in putting the icing on the cake of another successful conference. We hope you will take this chance to bid adieu to your friends and colleagues before you travel back to your place of origin. We also hope to ease your parting tears by including a drink ticket and a... | |
Get to janesville at either 8:30 or 9:30. | |
6:00 PM-9:30 PM | |
----- Saturday, July 21, 2012 ----- | |
Van galder bus from janesville to Midway | |
9:30 AM-1:00 PM | |
http://www.coachusa.com/vangalder/ss.details.asp?action=Lookup&c1=Janesville&s1=WI&c2=Chicago+Midway+Airport&s2=IL&resultId=132612&order=&dayFilter=&scheduleChoice=&sitePageName=%2Fvangalder%2Findex.asp&cbid=504997805425 | |
Frontier Airlines 536 - 3:50pm Midway | |
2:00 PM-5:30 PM | |
Return Sat, Jul 21 2hr 29min Total time Depart Chicago, Illinois Frontier Airlines 536 3:50 PM Midway Airport (MDW) Arrive Denver, Colorado 5:19 PM Denver International Airport (DEN) |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)